More Democrat Deception

In a recent column, Dick Morris discusses healthcare legislation.

The Democrat healthcare legislation in both the House and Senate have been promised to us as providing healthcare to more people "without raising your (middle class) taxes." (Supposedly rich people are footing the bill.) Everything about this legislation smells to high heaven, but Democrats are using a couple of tricks to fool the public.

One trick they are using is to transfer part of the cost to states. Both the House and the Senate bills require that states cover a larger percentage of their people under Medicaid. The House bill requires states to give Medicaid to those whose incomes are less than 150 percent of the poverty level; the Senate version is 125 percent. For most states, this means covering more people.

California, for example, which only covers families earning up to 100 percent of the poverty level, would have to increase its Medicaid spending on poor people by 50 percent under the House version. The federal legislation does not provide funds to cover the entire increase, so what will states have to do to pay for the shortfall? Increase taxes. Washington DC politicians will get the credit for something state governors have to pay the political price for.

The other trick Democrats are using is to push actual implementation of the healthcare legislation back to 2013 (2014 in the Harry Reid Senate version.) Of course, this lets Obama run for reelection before the actual effects of the legislation are felt. More important than that, however, is the fact that taxes to pay for the healthcare will be increased right away.

This trick dilutes the "ten year cost" of the legislation which the Congressional Budget Office uses to calculate a bill's budget impact. If you get money for four years without any expenses, it makes any plan look pretty good, even if the way Democrats are explaining the plan is inaccurate. So any numbers we are told regarding the "budget neutralness" of the legislation are based on deception.
John McCain compared it to buying a house and making mortgage payments for four years before you can move in.

As alarmists do with global warming propaganda, Democrats are deceiving the public. That deception should be the topic of debate before anyone ever considers the legislation.